'You've got your hands full'

Media request: Bloggers and first time novelists wanted for glossy women's magazine feature

HERE'S a messge from a senior journalist posting on Response Source.

Are you currently writing a blog or your first novel? I'm looking for women over 35 who, after much delay, have finally found the time to start writing the blog or novel they've always dreamed of. Ideally you'll have started in the last year.

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, please get in touch with a bit about yourself and attach a colour photo to your response.

Email: emma_pritchard[at]ipcmedia.com 

Deadline: July 16, 11am.

New blog for Judith's Room - hope you like it

WHEN Josie launched Judith's Room for women writers, I got a bit excited.

We've been working on a new blog for members, with advice, features, giveaways and more, which we hope will be of interest.

It kicks off with a wonderful piece by Janine Crowley Haynes about her experience of mental illness and how writing a book that has gone down a storm has helped her. I'm sure such courage will help plenty more people. I hope you can read Janine's extraordinary account and let her know how much her words are valued.   

I've lined up various competitions, interviews and other opportunities so hope you will pay us a visit over at Judith's Blog.

There's also an online shop showcasing works from members and featured authors as well as a wealth of resources for aspiring and established authors of fiction and non-fiction.

I hope you can consider buying books online through Judith's Room to help this warm community that's already empowering women and helping boost confidence.

Thanks a million.

Press release: 100 stories needed to help Haiti

Fund-raisers are calling for urgent short story submissions to help raise money for disaster-stricken Haiti.

Out of the submissions, one hundred pieces of fiction will be chosen to appear in an e-book, proceeds of which will go to the Red Cross.

The Red Cross is just one of a number of charities and humanitarian organisations mobilising a vast aid effort to reach the thousands of injured, hungry and thirsty survivors of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake to hit Haiti on 12 January.

100 Stories for Haiti is the brainchild of author Greg McQueen. On the morning of January 19, Greg posted a video on his blog saying: "Dear Twitterverse, I can't keep watching this on the news or trending on Twitter without doing something. I woke up this morning with the idea that together we could make an e-book and donate all the profits to the Red Cross."

Within hours news had spread throughout microblogging website Twitter and story submissions began arriving. Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone Away World, will be writing a new story for the book as well as the introduction. Lorraine Mace from short story website ABC Tales, and award-winning environmental journalist Sarah Lewis-Hammond are volunteering their time to help with the editorial process.

100 Stories for Haiti needs short story submissions, editors, sub-editors and volunteers.

If you want to send a short story, please follow these guidelines:
No more than 1,000 words
No stories containing graphic violence, death or destruction
Send all stories in the body text of an email to 100storiesforhaiti@gmail.com. Stories sent as attachments will not be opened.
Stories must be received by Monday 25 January 2010

Women who write discover Judith's Room

I'VE just read something amazing.

It's not a published book. But I loved it more than many I have read.

Thanks to Judith's Room, a new online community for women writers, I glimpsed a sneak peek at a work in progress Emily from Maternal Tales has been ignoring since becoming a mum.

Short story for Comic Relief - Lady Muck's last stand

HAVING found so much encouragement online since blogging about other stuff than twins, triplets and more, I thought I'd take a deep breath and share some of the fiction I've written.

The following is a short story included in a collection put together to raise money for Comic Relief. Although the project was started by me, I did submit this story, along with another one, anonymously.

Both came back with high praise from the judges so that was a great surprise.

My lovely friends Alice at DulwichDivorcee and ExmoorJane are now encouraging me to work on a novel and I keep saying I will but a small matter of two children and a mortgage keep getting in the way...(Plus of course an inevitable crisis of confidence, novels aren't for the likes of me...)

I hope you enjoy the following story and I hope you may even be able to spare a fiver to pay for a download for the rest of the TwitterTitters book as it's still on sale.

Call yourself a writer? A meme from me to you

READING various blog posts in recent days has got me thinking about writing.

So many brilliant bloggers are authors, journalists, aspiring novelists or poets. Some can consider themselves "just" bloggers and don't acknowledge what stars they are. Others wouldn't want to work for a 'dead tree' publication in a million years.

But do any of these writers reflect on the influence their words have had often enough? No, I'm not sure that they do.

So, in a bid to celebrate the achievements of blogging writers - however major or minor they consider them - I have put together a meme, which I am imaginatively naming the "Call Yourself a Writer?" meme. 

This is how it goes, with my answers included, to get the ball rolling:

Which words do you use too much in your writing?

Rude ones.

Which words do you consider overused in stuff you read?

Every parent's nightmare. Every girl's dream.

What is a mum? Persil advert in the dock, plus a new rhyme from me

YOU'VE got to love a bit of nostalgia, haven't you?

Gives you a warm glow inside.

But what's that you say? This isn't necessarily looking back fondly but a rehashing of tired, sexist stereotypes?

Hell, some people report they even turn off the telly in disgust.

What do you think, is this a storm in a cup and a half of washing powder? Or is Persil guilty as charged?

Whatever your view, here's my attempt to bring said ad up to date. Hope you enjoy it:

A mum is someone who saves to buy her kids a Wii activity mat

Then spends the money going to see Take That instead

A mum is someone who says ‘big girls don’t cry’

Then sighs: “Because I said so, that’s why.”

A mum is someone who is careful to get the balance between SuperNanny and Wife Swap just just right

She isn't sure why she sometimes weeps at night

A mum is someone who uses Prozac, has no pretty hats

For 100 years, she’s thought advertisers a bunch of twats

Think you can do better? You undoubtedly can! Why not give it a go?

* Some feedback included in the comments here comes from me posting my efforts at My Writers' Circle.

Thank you to Joanne at Parentdish for including this post in her 'best of the blogs' round-up and thanks to Nixdminx for drawing her readers' attention to it in the latest 'Mummy blogging' carnival. Check 'em out for lots of new writing you may like.